Bellisio Foods may be for sale

There's Wall Street speculation that Minneapolis-based Bellisio Foods will be sold after several years of ownership by Centre Partners, the New York-based private equity firm.
Bloomberg reported last month that the maker of Chili's and Boston Market frozen foods has attracted multiple suitors, including Nomad Foods, maker of Birds Eye brands in Europe, and other concerns.
Bloomberg said people familiar with the situation indicated that Bellisio may be worth around $800 million, or about 10 times estimated $85 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Neither Centre Partners, which is said to have retained investment bankers Morgan Stanley and Moelis & Co. for the auction process, or Bellisio responded to inquiries this week.
Centre Partners, which acquired Bellisio from the late Jeno Paulucci in 2011, has expanded the business and appears ready to make a buck in a still-hot mergers-and-acquisition market. Bellisio CEO Joel Connor and members of his management team also invested in the buyout. There also was industry talk of a sale in 2015. Private equity firms generally buy, invest and hold a company for several years before trying to sell for a premium.
Centre Partners has been busy building a bigger company since it acquired Bellisio.
In 2013, Bellisio bought then-bankrupt Austin Packaging, a southern Minnesota producer of sauces and frozen entrees, for more than $6 million. That same year, Bellisio bought Southern California-based Overhill Farms for $81 million.That transaction gave Bellisio production and marketing of frozen foods under the Boston Market brand.
Bellisio may be best known for its flagship Michelina's frozen entrees. It also makes frozen foods under the Atkins and Eating Well labels. The company manufactures more than two million frozen meals a day at plants in Jackson, Ohio; Vernon, Ca.; and Austin.